Hey, now that things have been cleared up as far as what you mean when you refer to ‘dive cancelling’ Zodi4c, you can start using it…
- to combo off of a landed j.2A dive even if it’s not a counter hit
- to continue pressure strings without having to go through your usual dive recovery frames
in the 1st scenario, when you land a j.2A as a counterhit, you pretty much want to land and go right into the C rekka loop:
j.2A (CH) > [land] 5B > …from here go into the loop
jc uf > j.5A > and go from there —sometimes, and more often as of late, I’ve been doing two j.5As as it leads to better positioning to land my 5D after the 5C knockdown, but mess with it and do what you prefer (i prefer one j.5A
after landing an RC’d 2C since the 2nd one will push you too far back more often than not to go into loop)
the thing about the dive canceling that is so cool, is that even on non-counter hit you can combo off of a dive. the timing is really tight tho. only other way i know how to go into rekka loop off of dive is with a quick RC the moment the dive connects then go through the same combo
to give you an idea of how tight it is, the combo is like this (and remember this is not a counter hit dive):
j.2A dive hits…just before you land, you dive cancel into j.2B but the dive never comes out allowing you to land and instantly attack w/o dive recovery…now when you land, you have to go from down to go neutral so you can do 5B (vs getting a 2B by mistake) and then quickly uf jc that into 5a etc etc (it seems as if doing two 5As here puts you out of range to combo into rekka unless you’re actually sjc’ing your 5B)
edit: also, i tried doing the 2A > 5B (1hit) > 5D punish on an IBed Ice Car and it didn’t leave Jin close enough…i still think your best bet outside of RCing 2A > 2C into rekka loop is to just 5A > 5A > 6B him away from you and knock him back fullscreen
edit2: i watched a few top Arak ranked replays on PSN and saw that some guys are doing variant bug combos…one guy did something like this:
air throw > [land] 5D > u/uf jc > j6A/B > u/ub jc > j2A > j2B > j2C > landed and went into rekka loop
*cool thing about this, the same buttons you press to land the dive releases the exact bugs you need to combo your next dive. sikkk
i assume he had them fall into a C/B bug as they fell to the ground to connect the loop off of that sick triple dive combo. i picked it up after seeing him do it and it seems height dependent. what i mean is, the closer to the ground you land your air throw, the easier it is to connect your 5D before they get the chance to tech
a variant that i started using was air throw, and just before you land, have them fall onto j.5D (that tongue looking thing that comes out of the ground)…when you press j.5D, hold C and B…right when the tongue hits, release C, then release B and you can go into rekka loop off of an air throw
so basically, i’ve been focusing my arak game purely on rekka loop set-ups, zoning, and punishment. the more set-ups we can use to freestyle rekka, the better. it beats letting some ragna run up and try to dp you the entire time or some noel on top of you spamming D groove and depleting your special guard…when you hit as Arak, hit hard
i recently ran into the nasty match-up vs a good Litchi and that is very fragile. curse as early as possible and don’t let up from there. sometimes, just to preserve curse, just block since you know staff and long-ranged pokes are coming, and neg edge bugs to set up your next line of offense (be mindful of dp). the rachel match-up is pretty nasty too since you can’t exactly dive on her given her high priority anti-air. that’s when you’re really tested as an Arak player. vs Nu, abandon zoning and rush her down (it’s your best bet and works pretty well). always try to use Arak’s top notch mobility to get in (blackheart-esque dash, anakaris-esque wall warp, fakes, j.6A/B/C. etc etc)
